To make sure there are enough school places, we are planning to establish new schools within the Bishop's Stortford North housing development, offering 180 secondary and 150 primary school places a year. We are working to open the first new primary school in September 2020 and the secondary school in 2022. We’ll determine the second primary school’s opening date in line with the developers’ housebuilding programmes and resulting demand for places.

The Department of Education (DfE) has agreed our recommendation that this new school provision should be run by Avanti Schools Trust who were selected through a thorough and robust competition process to find a sponsor.

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Harpenden

Harpenden Free School Trust submitted an application for a new free school to be built. This was approved in March 2015 by the Department for Education.

It was announced in January 2016 that we had secured the site for the new school.

The school is scheduled to open in September 2018.

For all future updates and information on the school opening in September 2018, please visit the Trust’s website at: www.kwschool.co.uk.

Background Information

There are currently 3 outstanding secondary schools in Harpenden. The demand for secondary school places is increasing. A new school is therefore needed to ensure that the rising demand in Harpenden and the surrounding villages can be met.

We've found a site for the new school and have exchanged contracts with owners of the land opposite to Lower Luton Road and Common Lane.

Meeting minutes

In July 2018, the government launched a joint special and Alternative Provision free schools wave, and asked local authorities to set out their case for why a new school would benefit their area. Hertfordshire County Council has identified the need for additional special school places to meet a gap in local provision and submitted a bid for a new special free school.

The Government has announced that Hertfordshire County Council was one of 39 successful local authority bids and we are inviting applications from proposer groups as the next stage in the process to establish a Special Free School (Academy) through a competition. Further details of that process can be found on the DfE website https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/special-free-school-applications